Shyam Sunder's Sham: NIST's Final Report on the Collapse of Building 7

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has finally given the world the much sought-after explanation for why Building 7 collapsed into its own footprint in less than 7 seconds on September 11, 2001. According to NIST we now have a newly discovered phenomenon called "Thermal Expansion." Here's what they say about it on their website:

"Determining the probable collapse sequence for WTC 7, NIST found that the impact of debris from the collapse of WTC 1 ignited fires on at least 10 floors of WTC 7, and the fires burned out of control on six lower floors. The heat from these uncontrolled fires caused thermal expansion of the steel beams on the lower floors of the east side of WTC 7, damaging the floor framing on multiple floors. Eventually, a girder on Floor 13 lost its connection to a critical interior column that provided support for the long floor spans on the east side of the building. The displaced girder and other local fire-induced damage caused Floor 13 to collapse, beginning a cascade of floor failures down to the fifth floor. Many of these floors had already been at least partially weakened by the fires in the vicinity of the critical column. This collapse of floors left the critical column unsupported over nine stories.

“When this critical column buckled due to lack of floor supports, it was the first domino in the chain,” Sunder explained. “What followed in rapid succession was a progression of structural failures. Failure first occurred all the way to the roof line—involving all three interior columns on the most eastern side of the building. Then, progressing from east to west across WTC 7, all of the columns in the core of the building failed. Finally, the entire façade collapsed.”(SeeNIST WTC 7 Investigation Finds Building Fires Caused Collapse)

Well, now we skeptics can take off our aluminum-foil hats and get a good night's sleep because we now know that steel buildings can collapse on our heads due to "thermal expansion" and not because of our wild imaginings of shadowy men in elevator maintenance uniforms surreptitiously planting bombs. What a fucked up thought to have anyway. Thermal heat bubbles causing spontaneous building collapse is much, much more palatable.

And, while we are in the process of suspending our disbelief for federal flights of fancy (yes, NIST is an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, which is under the aegis of the executive branch of government) let's not worry about all that physical evidence like the iron-aluminum-sulfur microspheres found all over in the World Trade Center dust, or the molten iron burning for weeks in the rubble, indicative of thermite/thermate explosions, or eyewitness testimony for that matter. We can now dismiss such bogus evidence because according to NIST this is just not plausible because it doesn't fit their hypothesis. From Syham Sunder, NIST's lead investigator into the collapse:

"In order for the thermate reaction to melt steel to take place, there has to be materials. If you look at the amount needed—at least 100 pounds for one column—you need someone to get that amount in the building, and place it, and for the reaction to take place. It is unlikely."

According to NIST's logic, it is unlikely that al Queda would have access to a building full of personnel from federal agencies like the CIA, the DoD and the Office of Emergency Management, so the physical evidence of thermite must be moot. Right?

Kevin Ryan doesn't think so. Ryan was an Underwriters Laboratory scientist who was fired from his management position when he questioned the fire-induced collapse explanation for WTC. He thinks thermite should be the central focus of study as this would explain the "substantial evidence that aluminothermic (thermite) materials were present at the WTC (Jones 2007), and the presense of such materials can explain the existence of intense fire where it would not otherwise have existed."

In an article titled, "The Top Ten Connections Between NIST and Nano-Thermites," Ryan writes:

"Regardless of how thermite materials were installed in the WTC, it is strange that NIST has been so blind to any such possibility. In fact, when reading NIST's reports on the WTC, and its periodic responses to FAQs from the public, one might get the idea that no one in the NIST organization had ever heard of nano-thermites before. But the truth is, many of the scientists and organizations involved in the NIST WTC investigation were not only well aware of nano-thermites they actually had considerable connection to, and some cases expertise in, this exact technology."(see The Top Ten Connections Between NIST and Nano-Thermites, by Kevin R. Ryan)

The article by Ryan goes into further depth of NIST's extensive ties to people and companies associated with this high explosive nano-technology, as well as the department's own research into the subject.

This reluctance by NIST to talk about thermite was highlighted last week during their press conference when Shane Geiger from infowars.com asks Dr. Sunder about the presence of these microspheres in all the samples of WTC dust. Dr. Sunder's response was to tell the reporter to go on NIST's website and read the thousands of pages of material and when the reporter has fully understood it to get back to NIST in writing "and we will look at what you have to say." Amazing.

Here's the video of this exchange:

Beside evidence of thermite being dismissed by NIST as evidence of controlled demolition, so is eyewitness testimony. Dr. Sunder states: "We asked ourselves what is the minimum amount of charge we could use to bring the building down, and we found that even the smallest charge would release an extremely loud sound heard half a mile away. There were no reports of such a sound; numerous observers and video recordings found the collapse to be relatively quiet."

Since Dr. Sunder has told us that explosives should be heard a half a mile away we can only speculate about what these people heard:

"Yeah I was just standing there, ya know... we were watching the building [WTC 7] actually 'cuz it was on fire... the bottom floors of the building were on fire and... we heard this sound that sounded like a clap of thunder... turned around - we were shocked to see that the building was, ah well it looked like there was a shockwave ripping through the building and the windows all busted out... it was horrifying... about a second later the bottom floor caved out and the building followed after that... we saw the building crash down all the way to the ground... we were in shock." - Darryl: 1010 WINS NYC News Radio (09/11/01)GZ Rescuer: ‘WTC 7 about to blow up’

... and this comment by NYPD officer Craig Bartmer who was in the immediate vicinity of Building 7 before and during its collapse at 5:30:

"I walked around it (Building 7). I saw a hole. I didn't see a hole bad enough to knock a building down, though. Yeah there was definitely fire in the building, but I didn't hear any... I didn't hear any creaking, or... I didn't hear any indication that it was going to come down. And all of a sudden the radios exploded and everyone started screaming 'get away, get away, get away from it!'... It was at that moment... I looked up, and it was nothing I would ever imagine seeing in my life. The thing started pealing in on itself... Somebody grabbed my shoulder and I started running, and the shit's hitting the ground behind me, and the whole time you're hearing "boom, boom, boom, boom, boom." I think I know an explosion when I hear it... Yeah it had some damage to it, but nothing like what they're saying... Nothing to account for what we saw... I m shocked at the story we've heard about it to be quite honest."NYPD Officer Heard Building 7 Bombs, Prison Planet

Obviously, there is a discrepancy in the historical record. So who are we to believe? The eyewitnesses on the ground? or a government spokesperson who was not there and doesn't even acknowledge these eyewitnesses' testimonies nor the physical evidence?

So, what conclusions can we come up with with this new report? I have to confess that I have not read the thousands of pages nor do I intend to. After a few assertions from Dr. Sunder like the ones above, I've concluded that it would be a huge exercise in futility to attempt to debunk the government's smoke screen any further because they are working under the principle of "If it doesn't fit (our hypothesis), than you must acquit."

(Suffice it to say, the 9/11 Truth community will once again shred up this report like so much falling paper flying from the twin towers.)

****

[A RP8 Comment regarding postings: I had to delete a few comments due to the racist remarks of certain anonymous individuals. It is one thing to criticize a country that may have been involved in a false flag event, it is another thing to condemn its people as a race, ethnicity or religion. I do not tolerate that on my blog, so please do not submit comments with such language or they will be deleted.]

14 comments:

I would like to know who is paying for Richard Gages' pseudoscientific deluge of misinformation typical of the absurd ideas put forward by the 9/11 ‘truth’ movement. Real scientists rarely speak of the truth until they have spent enough time and experimental effort examining the evidence. Its amazing to me how the 'controlled demolition' people most of whom have little or no knowledge or experience or expertise in the building collapse or fire protection area, just dismiss the reports of the top Fire Protection engineering experts in their fields and take some theological professor’s absurd babble about engineering as gospel. I suppose if your car didn’t start you would call the pizza man. The vaguest possibility is immediately touted as the truth and repeatedly echoed on the internet without any research or fact checking. Four years after the 9/11 attack and without inspecting any of the steel the Architect Richard Gage was listening to some equally uninformed Philosophy Professor, David Ray Griffin and had an epiphany and from then on he ‘knew’ that the buildings “had to be brought down by explosives”. “That’s the only way that you could have all the exterior columns in Building 7 fail within a fraction of a second.” How does he know all the columns failed at the same moment? These lower columns were out of sight of the cameras. The first thing to fail was the east side interior columns as evidenced by the east penthouse on the roof caving in. Five seconds later the west penthouse caved in indicating core column failure and than the exterior frame started to descend, but there were large belt trusses around the entire building between the 22nd to 24th floors. There could have been many exterior columns failing at different times below these belt trusses but these trusses held the upper building steady until a large number of lower exterior columns had failed. Building 7 took over 13 seconds to collapse not 6.

The top experts in the field. Shyam Sunder the NIST lead investigator, Gene Corley the American Society of Civil Engineers lead investigator both of whom have years and years if engineering experience. Gene Corley who was also the lead investigator in the Oklahoma City disaster, - which was destroyed by explosives, - said there was “no evidence of explosives” at the WTC site. He and Johanthan Barnett another experienced Fire Protection Engineer were on the scene immediately and examining the steel. Dr. Barnett described the devastation caused by the interior collapse of Building 5 from fire when the steel beams pulled out from their connections. These are all recognized experts in their fields and have to get things right in order to maintain their positions. I doubt a person inexperienced in the fire protection field could prove them wrong on anything related to the towers collapse without years of study, but they keep trying. The BBC put on the top building demolition expert Mark Loizeaux who explains how the towers collapse could not have been a controlled demolition and all he gets is blasted by the 9/11 ‘troofers’ for being ‘in-on’ the conspiracy.

Kevin Ryan knew nothing about how floor assemblies are tested by his own company Underwriters Laboratory. He reported that they tested the steel and it withstood 2000 deg for 3 and 4 hours. The UL tests floor and wall assemblies not the steel per se. The problem is that the long span floors used in the towers were never tested in their long span composite configuration of 60 feet. Building 7 also used long span steel “I” beams. As any architect knows the longer span floors require either massive joists or beams uneconomical for high rise buildings or specially designed construction such as steel trusses. What most architects apparently don’t know is that lightweight, long span steel trusses and “I” beams can fail at fire temperatures not yet compensated for in the codes. The standard furnace test can only handle 17 foot lengths of flooring and doesn’t test the connections for fire exposure. The furnace standards were set in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s when about 15 feet was the standard span used in high rises built for the more conservative codes used at that time. These older buildings used shorter spans, more robust columns and beams, stronger connections and better fireproofing then now. If a floor failed the pull-in (catenary) forces created by the short spans were easily handled by the strength of the rest of the structure. For this reason the codes allowed floors to have a shorter (3 hour) rating than the columns and girders (4 hours). The 17 foot furnace test, currently still used, is meaningless for the longer spans and connections. The main problem in the WTC flooring was due to the differential elongation (expansion) of the steel parts of the trusses. NIST’s studies found that the different expansion rates immediately deformed the steel parts, buckled the top chords and struts and disconnected the composite bond between the concrete slab and the joists. Greater thermal expansion of the bottom chords releases the tension and allows the cool top chord to sag until it acts as a cable in suspension creating pull-in forces on the columns. Contraction of sagging, long span steel flooring during the cool down faze after fire die down puts heavy pull-in loads on the connections. It is known now that Building 7 collapsed from expansion and contraction in the beams disconnecting enough of the beams and girders to affect column stability. The whole interior and core failed before the perimeter wall which came down as a unit at 40% less than free fall speed.

Many people interpreted the loud sounds and debris being projected out sideways during the Tower collapses as an indication that explosives were used to demolish the buildings. Most of these loud sounds, heard during the collapses were heard after the collapses began. In order for an explosion to cause a collapse it would have to occur before the collapse. Some ‘thunder’ sounds were heard before the columns buckled and these were probably from floors collapsing. Explosive forces great enough to destroy the columns would be as loud as ten times the decibel level (140 db) of standing next to the speakers at a rock concert.

The undamaged exterior walls can be seen bending and buckling inward in the videos of both Towers long before any sounds or ground vibrations occurred. In Tower 2, the exterior columns in the east wall were photographed bowing inward up to 10 inches, 18 minutes after the plane's impact. That's 38 minutes before the global collapse began. To be technical, you could say that Tower 2's collapse began slowly, with possibly some noise or impact sounds from falling floors, about 38 minutes earlier than the official collapse time. The explosive sounds and expanding dust clouds occurred just after the east wall buckled inward and started the collapse, and not before the buckling, as would have had to have happened with controlled demolition.

When the undamaged south wall of Tower 1 was photographed it was bowing inward up to 55 inches on floors 95 to 101, about six minutes before these columns were seen buckling inward. This bowing was witnessed and video taped by the Police Aviation Unit. In the North Tower "thunder" sounds were heard when some floors apparently collapsed on the south side 12 to 14 seconds before the top of the building was seen to tilt southward and begin falling as a unit starting the global collapse. Since each section of floor on the long-span side weighed about 500 tons, I would explore these 'supposed explosive' sounds in Tower 1 as evidence of a floor or floors detaching and impacting the floors below on the south side which most probably accelerated south column wall failure. The boom, boom, boom, boom, boom repetitive sounds reported by firefighters running as Tower 2 was coming down were most likely caused by the sequential collision of impacting floors after the top of the building began falling. The great quantity of air on each floor being compressed in a fraction of a second by great weight and momentum would propel air, smoke, and any concrete dust and debris outward from the building at great velocity by the bellows effect of the floors coming together so quickly.

Initial Collapse Cause

Much has been made of the fact that NIST only analyzed the events up to the point where the Towers were poised to collapse before runaway collapse began and failed to pursue the remaining collapse. This was largely because after collapse began the chaotic impacts of the floors, Tower’s walls and columns colliding could not possibly be analyzed accurately with even the strongest computers. As it was, it was a severe strain on computer capabilities to analyze the mechanism of collapse up to the point of runaway disintegration. By dint of super computers running for extended periods of time NIST did examine the complete collapse sequence of building 7.

It is clear from the computer studies that the heat from the fires caused differential expansion of the steel parts in the long span, floor trusses in the towers with the resulting thermal bowing in some floors directly exerting pull-in forces on the exterior columns or this thermal bowing could have detached a floor which would have impacted the floor below destroying its composite action by separating the concrete slab from the trusses and inducing strong tensile (suspension) forces in the double weighted floor. In other floors thermal expansion of the floor against the columns compressed the trusses which along with shear forces within the trusses that buckled the diagonal struts collapsing the trusses which went into suspension (catenary action) and this also helped pull-in and eventually buckle the exterior column walls. Differential thermal expansion of the concrete and steel has also been shown by NIST to disconnect the knuckles (knuckles are the steel tops of the bent over bars in the trusses which are imbedded in the concrete slab) from the concrete slab causing loss of composite behavior in the floors.

All these adverse floor truss effects were caused by steel expansion which begins immediately as the steel is heated. Bowing and buckling can happen at low temperatures (300 C to 500 C) even before the steel would have weakened excessively from higher temperatures. Thermal contraction caused by cooling of sagging trusses or ‘I’ beams after the fire ‘burns out’ or dies down can cause strong pull-in forces on the exterior columns and core columns due to the contraction of the sagging steel trusses or ‘I’ beams.

In order for a column to support the loads it has to be plumb and in line with the columns above and below. The fact is, columns have to be axially (in line and centered) aligned to support the weight of the building above. If they get out of alignment by 10 to 20 degrees they buckle and can no longer support the weight. The buildings collapsed because the floors first caved in from restrained thermal expansion and from thermal bowing or delamination of the slab and bar joists affecting floor truss stability. The sagging, 60 foot long, floor trusses gradually pulled-in the 59 columns in one exterior wall in each tower and these column walls eventually buckled removing support on one entire side. In Building 7 floor failures from steel expansion and/or contraction disconnecting the floor beams exposed a critical column to loss of lateral restraint over many floors causing the column to buckle and remove support for all the floors above and starting the complete collapse of the building.

In the Towers once the exterior columns buckling spread, along an entire wall removing support on one face, the buckling spread around the towers exterior and into the core and the towers began to tilt. With all the columns buckled the leaning top sections of the tower began to fall straight down. Although the North tower antenna appeared from some northern angles to have began falling straight down it actually tilted to the south because the south wall buckled first and the cantilevered top building section pulled the core along with the entire top over to the south. This is especially telling since with all the damage from the plane impact on the north side, the tower should have leaned over to the north. The South Towers’ top tilted to the east because its east wall buckled first. Once the tower’s tops began tilting all the columns across the buildings would eventually be out of alignment enough to have easily buckled.

Once the core columns got out of plumb, there would have been little resistance to their buckling at the weak splices. After the upper part of the buildings began descending, with the incredible weight of the top of the buildings’ gaining momentum, like a heavy wedge or sledge all it had to do was break the welded, and single bolt connections holding the floors to the columns. This is coupled with the fact that the falling top section’s momentum increases as the square of the number of floors impacted as the floors were detached and added to the weight of the descending top. There would have been little resistance to slow the top section's increasing mass of impacted floors acceleration to the ground. Because this acceleration due to gravity increased the speed and momentum of the collapsing floors and building top, the impacts were increasingly violent as shown on the seismic graphs; increasing in amplitude until maximum when the mass of accumulated floors hit bedrock seven stories into the cellar.

There have been some engineering analyses about the impacting floors slowing down the collapse so that the time to collapse should have been much longer than 'free fall' times of an object dropped from the towers tops. Once the buildings started to tip over from loss of column support on one side, the tremendous excess eccentric weight began buckling all the columns across the building. Once the tilted building's tops began descending the columns hit the floors or the lower columns at eccentric angles which easily detached the floors and buckled the columns. In order for the lower building section to offer any meaningful resistance to the falling building top, the columns would have had to hit each other exactly in line and plumb and this was impossible with the top of the building leaning causing eccentric angles of impact.

Once the top building section began tilting the columns on the side that originally buckled did not line up at all. These columns would have been hitting the floors and would have easily detached or buckled them. After the east wall buckled in Tower 2, the adjacent perimeter wall columns buckled from overloads and the columns on the opposite west side of the building, which were still attached and acted as a hinge would still be bearing on each other but at an eccentric angle which means they also would have also eventually buckled as the top tilted. These columns along with some of the core columns as they buckled are probably what kicked the bottom of the top building section to the west as reported by NIST. Because of the weight of the accumulating collapsing floors, there was a release of incredible potential energy changing to kinetic energy and building momentum as the accumulating chaotic mass of debris accelerated into the cellars.

Since the Tower's outer wall columns, especially in Tower 1, pealed out like a banana after the building top began to impact the floors, these wall columns may have been able to break the connections to the floors ahead of the floors being impacted? In other words, with the weight of the wall columns pealing outward from the vertical along with the added horizontal forces of impacting floors projecting debris outwards onto these columns, these columns, while leaning out, might have been able to break the wall-to-floor connections ahead of the level of impacting floors? If this is possible than I believe that the connection failures could have traveled down the sides of the buildings at a speed faster than free fall times. This might explain the rapidity of the collapses especially in Tower 1. The wall-to-floor connection failures could have traveled down the building sides faster than 'free fall' times and in effect started the floors falling before they were impacted by the accumulating mass of impacted floors above.

The heavy exterior wall columns in the 1500 foot high buildings while pealing off could project the column sections outwards a great distance. This distance (300 to 400 feet) was proposed as only being made possible by explosive forces. I disagree. If a wall is strong enough and doesn’t break up as it falls outward it can fall out flat to a distance equal to its height. The Tower walls, however, did break at the weak splices as they fell. The fact that the exterior wall columns can be seen in the videos and pictures falling outward and downward and reaching the ground before the tower finished collapsing proves that the tower did not collapse faster than free fall times. These outer wall sections were falling at free fall speed and apparently were the first to hit the ground.

The compression of the 12 foot chunk of air on each floor down to a fraction of an inch in a fraction of a second as the floors came together would propel the air smoke and dust outward from the building at great velocity. The lightweight aluminum cladding as it broke free from the buckling columns also would have been propelled outward a great distance by this expanding cloud of air and dust. This air compression would account for huge dust clouds and pieces of aluminum seen projected outwards from the upper sections of the collapsing buildings. The light reflected off the aluminum pieces at the north wall of Tower 2 would be interpreted as flashes from explosive 'squibs'. The flashes below the buckling east wall may have been from the aluminum cladding breaking free from the lower columns as they expanded after being unloaded of axial compressive weight by the buckling of the wall above and their expansion breaking the connections to the cladding. Also explosives leave characteristic tears and fractures in steel and especially in aluminum, and such indications were not found anywhere in the debris pile.

The compression of air in the elevator and air-conditioning shafts by the collapsing upper building section and floors, would project air, smoke, and dust down these shafts and out any path of least resistance or any of the HVAC air intake or discharge openings on the lower mechanical equipment floors in the exterior walls. This accounts for the plumes of smoke seen projecting outwards sideways from the buildings well below the collapsing floors. There were quite extensive Heating, Ventilating, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) shafts built into the building. These vertical shafts are connected to air conditioning exhaust and intake ducts open to the exterior on the mechanical floors. Deep Seated Pockets of FireAfter any fire in which a building collapses, there often remain deep seated, pockets of fire deep within the rubble pile These pockets of fire sometimes cannot be reached by water streams because of their being covered by debris. Air is sometimes drawn up from the bottom of the pile and feeds these inaccessible fires with air. These fires can last for days and the heat can become intense and can heat any steel in proximity to the fire until the steel is glowing red, orange or yellow hot. These pockets of fire are common at burning building collapses and in no way evidence that that explosives or thermite were used to demolish the buildings. These fires are similar to blacksmith forge fires where air is blown into the charcoals by a bellows to raise the temperature of the fire to heat a piece of steel or iron. The blacksmith can tell how hot the steel or iron is by its color and can tell when the steel is soft enough to work it with a hammer The deep seated fires which occur in the rubble are supplied with air because natural convection currents. Heated air rises because of its bouyancy and is replaced by cool air drawn in from the bottom and sides of the fire. This air flow can become rapid because of the high temperatures developed. The more air drawn in the hotter the fire becomes and the increased temperature increases the convection currents which draws in more air. Like in a furnace the containment of heat by insulation provided by the compacted combustible material surrounding the fire allowes the gradual increase of temperature. I am convinced that temperatures of over 2000 deg F. can easily be developed in these deep seated pockets of fire in the rubble of a collapsed building. These inaccessible fires often have to be dug out by hand tools, back hoes or grapplers in order to expose the burning material for extinguishment. It is common to hold off hitting the fire with water until it is fully exposed in order to prevent the great amount of steam that would be created from obscuring the work area until the fire is fully exposed and can be quickly extinguished. This is what is happening in the picture of a grappler pulling out a piece of glowing hot steel from the debris pile so often described as molten steel. Such ordinary fires are incapable of melting steel unless they are supplied with enough oxygen.

Much has been made of the presence of molten metal in the debris pile after the collapse. Presumably this molten metal was somehow thought to be connected to explosions or thermite charges, but there were Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) battery rooms on some floors of the Towers and Building 7. These battery rooms supplied continuous battery power to computers if the electricity failed for any reason. These batteries contained tons of lead which melts at low temperatures [327 C (621 F)]. The heat from the fires in the debris pile could easily have melted this lead or the aluminum from the plane or aluminum from the tower’s own cladding which were probably the metals that were seen flowing through the pile. NIST reported UPS in the 13th floor of Building 7 and the 81st floor of Tower 2. There were also quantities of lead, tin, silver and even gold used in the computer circuit boards.

Additionally the EPA reported over 400 different chemicals in the dust and debris. These chemicals could easily be assembled conceptually to propose any type of chemical reaction imaginable including thermite reactions. In addition thermite reactions are rapid and wouldn't last the hours or days at which times the molten metal was observed. As far as I know thermite has never been used to demolish buildings and the expertise probably doesn’t exist. Thermite is hard to control and can’t be held against the columns because it would burn down through any material used to support it against the columns.

Pure oxygen is used in oxyacetylene torches to actually ignite burn and melt the steel when cutting. These torches were used to help clear the debris pile during search and recovery operations. A slag of melted and re-solidified steel and Ferrous oxide is formed on the opposite side of the cut. This slag formation and the angle of the cuts were erroneously reported to be evidence of cutter charges having been used to sever the columns. Small molten pieces of glowing steel cool into spheres as they fly out from the cut. These steel microspheres could also have been produced during the construction by welders and retained in the concrete or else where only to be released during the collapse.

About the concrete destruction into dust; F.R. Greening did a paper called Energy Transfer in the WTC Collapse in which he says "the energy required to crush concrete to 100 μm particles is 1.9 × 1011 J, which is well within the crushing capacity of the available energy. Hence it is theoretically possible for the WTC collapse events to have crushed more than 90 % of the floor concrete to particles well within the observed particle size range." http://nistreview.org/WTC-REPORT-GREENING.pdf I would also investigate the possibility that the concrete was sub par due to freezing during curing or too much air or water having been added during the pouring and finishing operation.

Do you think the architect or engineers who built the Towers would want to admit the deficiencies in design, fireproofing and other construction weaknesses after their buildings collapsed? Do you think they will get any other jobs after 4 of their buildings collapsed from fire? (Building 5 had a serious interior multiple floor collapse due to fire.) Do you know that the Port Authority of NY, NJ didn't legally have to follow any building codes? The reason the columns broke at the splices was that they had serious weaknesses due to lack of reinforcing plates or even welds on most of the exterior column, bolted splices and not because they were broken up into short pieces, presumably by explosives, ‘so they would fit onto the trucks to be carried away’. The long span truss floors were never tested for fire resistance at their design length. Why do you think it took so long to get the plans for the buildings after they collapsed while the building engineers had them all along? I would think the architects and engineers for 9/11 truth would be accepting any excuse that would allow them to avoid the introspection necessary to fully realize their own lack of knowledge of fire safety precautions, even the wild idea that explosives or thermite was involved.

About the eye witnesses; there are many reasons that loud sounds can be produced at a fire. Most of the people in tower 2 did not know tower 1 had been struck by a plane but they heard the explosion and even felt the radiant heat produced by the fireball. Often at fires the ones closest to the fires and engaged in heavy work have a very limited overall conception of what is actually happening. When tower 2 collapsed most of the people in Tower 1 thought the sounds and vibrations came from the building they were in and they even felt a rush of air up the stairs as the air was compressed in the cellars. There can also be smoke explosions (backdrafts) particularly in fires that have a flammable liquid involved. One elevator shaft that extended into the cellars had a fuel-air explosion from the jet fuel spilling down and evaporating in the shaft. There were other fuel-air explosions in the elevator shafts. There could have been floor detachments impacting the floors below and producing loud sounds before any general collapse began. Explosives also produce loud distinctive pressure waves that can leave people deaf or blow out eardrums and usually blow out all the windows on the particular floor and in any buildings nearby. This kind of sharp piercing crack was not heard. The windows broken out and marble wall panels detached on the interior of the first floor lobby were probably because of torque or bending forces experienced on the lower floor columns from the plane impacts many floors above. The buildings were reported to sway several feet when the planes hit the towers. The reports of "explosions" in the cellars were also probably from such column or floor displacements or from jet fuel ignitions in the elevator shafts. If you imbed a stick into the ground and hit it with another stick most of the deformation will be in the ground around the bottom of the stick. There were reports of split walls and ceiling collapses on many floors after the planes hit.

How do you think that the supposed Conspirators knew that Building 7 would be hit by pieces of Tower 1 which would set it on fire? They would have to know this beforehand in order to set the mysterious explosive charges. Why did they wait 5 hours until most fires died down to set off these alleged charges, and how did these so called charges withstand the fires for 5 hours without igniting? How come the computer models show steel beam, thermal expansion, sagging and disconnection from the columns due thermal expansion or contraction of the beams due to the fires in Building 7?

How come the, A&E, 9/11 truthers never mention Building 5. Did building 5 which had a serious fire on many floors and had several floors collapse from the steel beams being disconnected from the columns due to thermal expansion sagging and catinary action tearing out the bolted beam connections. (ASCE, Building Performance Study) I propose that some of the ‘truthers’ never even read the American Society of Civil Engineer’s or the NIST’s report. Did building 5 also have charges set beforehand? How many other buildings had hypothetical charges set beforehand and were never set off? If they went to all the trouble to rig all these buildings with assumed explosives, why didn’t they just set them off and forget the planes and the fires. Waiting for the planes and fires would surely increase their chances of being detected

There are so many questions answered by the fire theories and so many unanswerable questions posed by the conspiracy theories that it is ludicrous to continue the proposition that explosives had to be employed to collapse these buildings.

BBC reporting error on Building 7 collapse.

In addition to the damage done to Building 7 by the heavy steel column trees that pealed off of the collapsing twin towers some of these steel columns penetrated the roads and broke the nearby water mains. There was no water supply immediately available and the Fire Department Chief in Command could not fight the numerous fires in Building 7 and ordered every one out of the building and out of the collapse zone (which was a large area including buildings and streets around Building 7). Two huge buildings had already collapsed and when you can’t fight a fire because there is no water pressure it grows out of control all bets are off as to exactly what will happen in one of these newer lightweight, open area high rise office buildings.

When anticipating possible collapse it is the procedure to discontinue interior operations and clear the building and establish a collapse zone around the building. The anticipation of collapse was a brilliant call and no lives were lost when the 47 story building collapsed a few hours after the evacuation order was given.*

You ask “How did the BBC know that the Towers were going to collapse?” The BBC didn't know. Did you ever hear a mistake made by a reporter? Or do you believe everything you are told by a TV reporter in the heat of an emergency? The BBC reporter on the air received an erroneous report that the tower had collapsed before it actually did and reported it well before the actual occurrence. It was a simple mistake.

I can imagine how it happened. Possibly a reporter on being told to evacuate the area by a rescue worker balked and to get him to move faster the worker told him the building is coming down. The reporter called his boss and told him the building 7 is coming down. The person receiving the call believed the building was already collapsing. It went out over the air as the building had already collapsed before the actual occurrence.

Of course if you believe that all the top fire protection engineers from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and government scientists from National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) investigating the collapse are in on a conspiracy and also want to accuse the BBC, the NYC Fire Department, the NYC Police Department, the Red Cross and all the Government agencies controlling access Building 7 of being in on a secret controlled demolition even though there was no hard evidence than I would say you are an idiot.

* This is a message from Chief of Department (ret.) Daniel Nigro, addressing the conspiracy theories surrounding the collapse of WTC7. Thank you very much for this statement, Mr. Nigro. The work you and your colleagues did will never be forgotten.

Release date: September 23, 2007

Regarding WTC 7: The long-awaited US Government NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) report on the collapse of WTC 7 is due to be published at the end of this year (although it has been delayed already a few times [ adding fuel to the conspiracy theorists fires!]). That report should explain the cause and mechanics of the collapse in great detail. Early on the afternoon of September 11th 2001, following the collapse of WTC 1 & 2, I feared a collapse of WTC 7 (as did many on my staff).

The reasons are as follows:

1 - Although prior to that day high-rise structures had never collapsed, The collapse of WTC 1 & 2 showed that certain high-rise structures subjected to damage from impact and from fire will collapse. 2. The collapse of WTC 1 damaged portions of the lower floors of WTC 7.3. WTC 7, we knew, was built on a small number of large columns providing an open Atrium on the lower levels. 4. Numerous fires on many floors of WTC 7 burned without sufficient water supply to attack them.

For these reasons I made the decision (without consulting the owner, the mayor or anyone else - as ranking fire officer, that decision was my responsibility) to clear a collapse zone surrounding the building and to stop all activity within that zone. Approximately three hours after that order was given, WTC 7 collapsed.

Conspiracy theories abound and I believe firmly that all of them are without merit.

Regards, Dan NigroChief of Department FDNY (retired)

In conclusion I think all the reports of controlled demolition can be explained by sounds or sights produced by the plane impacts and jet fuel and air explosions; the sounds of the Towers collapse. When the interior of building 7 collapsed it would have produced loud sounds before the exterior walls began collapsing.

Art...you are either an idiot or part of the "bad guys" team. When was the last steel structured building to collapse in the world because of fire? Not counting the other two WTC buildings earlier in the day? This should make Guiness records wouldn't you think?

Tell me this: NIST's autopsy of WTC 7 was based on computer models, they used NO beams from WTC 7 to come to their conclusions.

And what about WTC 6? That building was damn near sawed in half from falling debris, yet was still standing at the end of the day and had to be demolished.

And let's not forget WTC 5, where a fire that was more intense than the one burning in WTC 7, that fire DIDN'T collapse WTC 7.

I see you're a retired firefighter. So am I, so here's my questions, one firefighter to another:

Let me humbly offer some eyewitness accounts of building collapses. Several years back, i retired from a central Missouri Fire Department (FD) as a career fire fighter. Retired with the rank of Lieutenant.

The reason i mention my rank is to comment on the fact that as a LT. i was able to be in command of a fire and observe the fire behavior and building's characteristics from the outside, instead of being in the interior, fighting the Beast.

In 20+ years of service, i was on the scene of more than a few structure fires. Fires in various types of buildings, including residential, commercial and industrial. Even high rises. Most times, we were able to fight the fire successfully, extinguish the flames and return a sizable portion of the building and contents back to the owner.However, some of the times, we lost the fight--and as the post fire investigation by the Fire Marshal's office would find, those fires involved arson--and were forced to go from an offensive mode, in which we would conduct interior fire fighting, to a defensive mode, in which we would "surround and drown" the building with immense amounts of water from the exterior.

When that happened, some of the times the building would collapse, due to interior fire damage and the immense amounts of water applied in fire suppression. The structure would collapse in a random, haphazard, piecemeal manner. Not once did i personally witness one of those structures collapsing in the rather controlled and somewhat neat pancake fashion as the WTC towers and Building 7.

i might be able to believe that one of the towers could fall that way, but all three? On the same day, within hours of one another? Think that would be physically impossible.

There has been much made about the interior fire's heat contributing to the collapse of the WTC's. i also disagree with that.Those buildings, thanks to the fire codes enacted over the years, were built to withstand fire and not add to the flames.

The type of fires left burning after the jet fuel flamed off are what we call "contents fires". They involve the burning of the contents of the rooms/building, such as furniture, carpets and the like.Initially, these fires are hot, but either burn out quickly or suffocate themselves due to the fire needing a large amount of oxygen and not being able to receive the proper amount of oxygen due to the large amount of smoke generated or no fresh sources of oxygen.

Couple of years ago, the NYFD released some of the on scene radio transcripts from some of the interior fire fighting units. i've read thru some of the radio traffic and from their accounts, in one of the towers, they not only had the fire extinguished, they were going to start providing medical care to the victims.

i believe the published radio accounts, not only due to the authentic sounding radio traffic, but the fact that they acted like fire fighters; that is, you make a decision at the beginning of the operation as to whether or not you are going to fight fire or rescue victims.Since most FD's are usually understaffed and cannot provide both services, you usually elect to fight the fire, while ventilating the building to push out the toxic gases and smoke so the victims can at least get fresh air.

If the on scene fire crews had not only extinguished the fire(s) and determined that the building was safe enough to conduct medical care and rescue, then there is something terribly amiss and wrong with the so called "official" 9/11 version.

Greg Bacon's rebuttal was a thousand times clearer and more believable than Arthur Scheurmann's 36 (!) paragraph techno babble. Arthur attempts to wow us with his jargon and his (seemingly valid) engineering knowhow. His confidence is clearly expressed, yet confidence does not always belie accuracy. The basic matter is that your explanation, Arthur, is one that has never played out in the history of building before. A new phenomenon, how convenient. Lets suspend the laws of physics. Your lengthy garbage wasted 15 minutes of my day, and its people like you that turn others off to science. The truth is always simple, yet you make it difficult. Remember Occam's Razor. If it looks like controlled demolition, it is. If you need to invent a new phenomenon to support your hypothesis, your hypothesis is WEAK (unlike steel :). You unsuccessfully use 36 long paragraphs in pursuasion of something that is plainly incorrect, I believe that is called obfuscation. It sounds important, but it makes you sound more like a lawyer than a physicist. And we all know that lawyers are usually self important, like you, Arthur. Can't see the forest for the trees. For those of you that are unfamiliar with the prejudices of "scientists," don't believe this rat, he's just trying to confuse you.

Again, Greg Bacon, you sound like a way cool individual, a professional, and your observations are very compelling, even to someone who has spent too much time evaluating both sides of this question.

To those who will listen, we're through Alice's looking glass. 911 was only the beginning, the whole world as we know it is about to unravel and you'll wish you had some sort of "Plan B."

Which means you are part and parcel of the Bush/Cheney Junta's "Echo Chamber" that has been spreading lies, fear and propaganda for the last 7.5 years to scare the hell out of Americans so they'll continue to fight endless wars in the bogus "War on Terror," for Empire and Israel.

When that Hellfire missile slams into an Afghani wedding party and turns the women and children into hamburger, that's your finger on the trigger, Mr. Scheuerman.

Tell, me, how much did you sell your soul to NIST for? A lot?

Do you still believe in the discredited "9/11 Commission" report, the one where members have stated that they were lied to and misled by the Bush White House?

Do you?

And are you related to that nation of religious bigots, that racist and apartheid Jews only state of Hate, Israel?

Just wondering.

For you know as well as I that when the actual truth comes out about 9/11 and when that shows Israel's complicity in that horrendous day, then Israel will not be long for this earth.

Scary, huh?

Begone, Scheuerman, scurry back to your rat hole and count those gold coins NIST tossed at your feet. Go back to your lair and loudly count those coins, that way, maybe the sounds of those coins clanking together will drown out the cries of your conscience.

HA! Good research Bacon. Here's another simple coda from the lawyers's world for Scheurmann. "Conflict of Interest." Galileo and Newton would be most displeased with your brand of preconceived scientific method. Keep hiding behind that white lab coat. The carnie loving rubes may believe you, but the internet is spawing a whole new generation of seekers that will evaluate your bunkum for what it is.

Thanks for the intel on Scheuerman Bacon. I had this guy pegged as a disinfo agent simply because, as a trained fire "expert", some of the claims he was making were so fanciful that he was either completely deluded or a deliberate LIAR.

It looks like Mr Scheuerman's post here contains his standard pasted disinformation with a few added modifications taken from the recent NIST fraud.

I've had about 5 such attacks in recent months- all thoroughly rebutted.

As you can see his posts rely heavily on unsupported conjecture- very heavy on the unproven HYPOTHETICAL whilst grossly distorting the hard physical evidence of THERMITES, the MOLTEN STEEL and also the highly credible reports of explosions.

This guy really is the number one serial disinfo pest. He's a cover up artist for mass murderers and he must know what he is doing.

Quit Arthur. Let Justice be done so we can all look forward to a better future. (oh, and Arthur, if you post another one of these same discredited, long winded, rants at my blog again- without offering anything new- then I'll be deleting it. Posting the same rubbish ad nauseum, rather than engaging in a reasoned debate, is simply not acceptable.)

I find Mr. Arthur Scheuerman comment "I would like to know who is paying for Richard Gages' pseudoscientific deluge of misinformation typical of the absurd ideas put forward by the 9/11 ‘truth’ movement."

This is the sort of manipulative disinformation that the media practices on a daily basis. It is merely meant to discredit and misdirect people away from the truth. We know better.

First, Richard Cage is a licensed architect with 20 years experience and not the only credible professional to present solid evidence against the official story.

If Mr. Scheuerman had bothered to open his eyes, he would have seen the 400+l engineers and architects worldwide, supporting Mr. Cage's position (http://www.ae911truth.org/supporters.php?g=_AES_#999969) .

Add to that the mountain of forensic evidence, the blatent suppression of facts from NIST and sheer implausibility of 3 symmetrical collapses in one day and you have the makings of a massive cover up.

As it relates to NIST, it important to point out that it is a government agency, so asking them to investigate the wtc collapses is like asking the mob to investigate themselves.Now who has a credibility problem?

I'm no expert on building collapses, but it all seemed too convenient right from the start. I could possibly accept the collapses of the two towers considering the rapid chain of events, but looking at wtc 7 disturbed me on a different level.It seemed like it was screaming out for attention to the scenes behind the curtain.

NIST's recent mountain of fabricated calculations and computer assumptions only added to the problem since real world data would not produce a viable reason for wtc 7's collapse. They suddenly found themselves inventing a new "phenomenon" in order to fit their theory on wtc collapses. This is essentially what they did in their original report on towers 1 and 2.

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